MMA Experts Jon Anik/Jason Chambers and George X/Manny Rodriguez Comprise On-Air Teams
Los Angeles, Calif. – April 2, 2009, – Bellator Fighting Championships officially revealed today the four broadcast personalities who will announce the 2009 tournament season’s events. The English language on-air team includes popular ESPN mixed martial arts (MMA) analyst Jon Anik and mixed martial artist and television personality Jason Chambers; both men will provide the English language cageside commentary. Well-known Spanish language commentator and extreme sports participant George X will join former King of the Cage Heavyweight Champion Manny Rodriguez to cover the Spanish language broadcast duties through Bellator’s exclusive alliance with ESPN Deportes. Together the four personalities bring a wealth of inside-the-cage knowledge, tremendous on-air experience and great excitement to the Bellator series and to its highly-anticipated premiere.
Jon Anik, the host ESPN’s widely popular web series “MMA Live,” joined the ESPN team in 2006, where he has since served as both a broadcast and radio personality. Backed by an extensive MMA and boxing resume, Jon will provide the English language blow-by-blow commentary for all Bellator fights in addition to his perspective on Bellator’s tournament, fighters and match-ups in the tournament competition. Partnering with Anik is MMA fighter and television personality Jason Chambers. Chambers has enjoyed a very successful professional career with an 18-5 record and just last year hosted the successful History Channel series “Human Weapon,” where Jason traveled the globe to study and practice various methods of martial arts. This unique combination of in the cage and on the air MMA experience, coupled with a vast amount of shared MMA knowledge will provide great insight and entertainment to MMA fans worldwide.
Anchoring the action for Bellator’s Spanish language broadcast on ESPN Deportes are George X and Manny Rodriguez. George X is one of Mexico ’s best known Spanish language announcers, who has announced events such as the NBA finals, the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl XXXV. Extreme sports fans will know George X as the face and voice of ESPN Spanish language coverage of the X Games. He is a large scale MMA fan having attended many MMA events as both fan and journalist, and has been a writer for the leading Latino MMA publication, Extreme Fighting. Rodriguez , the former King of the Cage Heavyweight Champion has handled a wide collection of on-air broadcast duties for numerous Mexican MMA events. Rodriguez’s technical expertise in MMA coupled with a tremendous ability to communicate that knowledge to both new and experienced MMA fans makes him a pure pleasure to listen to behind the cage. The nationally televised ESPN Deportes broadcast will air at 9 pm EST/6:00 pm PST beginning April 4, 2009 and every Saturday night thereafter for 12 weeks.
“We could not be happier with both of our on-air broadcast teams. Jon, Jason, Manny and George bring a wealth of legitimate MMA experience and in-depth MMA reporting backgrounds to our English and Spanish language announcing booths. Each one of these guys knows the game inside and out and will bring that expertise and excitement to our viewers,” said Bjorn Rebney , CEO of Bellator Fighting Championships.
Bellator Fighting Championships’ premiere season consists of 12 two-hour events to be broadcast weekly in primetime on Saturday nights on ESPN Deportes, and the English broadcast will be available on Bellator’s website. The events will feature a combination of tournament and non-tournament special feature bouts. There will be four simultaneous tournaments taking place in season #1 over a three month period: one in each of the Featherweight (145 lb.), Lightweight (155 lb.), Welterweight (170 lb.) and Middleweight (185 lb.) divisions.
For more information on Bellator Fighting Championships, visit www.Bellator.com. For the Spanish language version of the website, visit www.Espanol.Bellator.com.
About Bellator Fighting Championships
Bellator Fighting Championships is a Mixed Martial Arts promotional company with offices in Los Angeles and Chicago . Bellator’s founders, Bjorn Rebney and Brad Epstein, are experienced fighting sports and entertainment professionals with a deep commitment to the purity and integrity of the sport of MMA and its athletes. Bellator Fighting Championships’ executive team is comprised of top industry professionals in the areas of live event production (including Rob Beiner, winner of 12 Emmy awards for sports programming), fighter relations, venue procurement, sponsorship creation/development, international licensing, marketing, advertising, publicity and commission relations.